Mission: CRP

At the bottom of our mountain is an inconspicuous gravel road leading up a hill.  But what is at the end of the road behind a white gate decorated with hearts is a mission with a sad but beautiful story of love, loss, redemption, and eternal hope.

A young husband and father, Zach, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and he wanted to "redeem" his cancer for something good.  Loving Shepherd Ministries is an organization which had a program called Homes of Hope.  Before Zach passed away, he started the Cancer Redemption Project, which is a campus with six Homes of Hope, a church and a school.

Orphaned and vulnerable can be chosen to come to live at a HOH.  Each home has a mother and father and 12 children, either all boys or all girls.  These children and the parents become a REAL family....forever!  Without leaving their country, their culture, their language.  And Christian couples can raise these children to know the Lord.

We had been to visit CRP a few years ago, and not everything was finished at that point.  Last week, the kids and I went along with a work team to go visit, and it was neat to see again.  When we came, all the kids were waiting for us in a big pavilion.  There we introduced ourselves and told a little about ourselves, and gave some words of encouragement or a story to the kids or the parents.  The children sang a few songs to us, and impressed us with their attentiveness and ability to sit still (unlike the two over-active outsider children...ahem!).

Cassia was going around to make friends.  This picture was right before she hit the little boy in the face with her fingernails.  How do you teach a 16 month old gentleness??

We visited each of the six homes, and the kids loved taking our hands and showing us their bedrooms.  Each house had three children's rooms (four kids per room), a room for mom and dad, a kitchen area, and a little storage room, and a main hallway/living area.

The houses had names like Mount Zion, Ezekiel, and Mount Moriah, and I loved the pictures and Bible verses displayed in their homes.  "They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever."

 The school/church building is now in use, with all the children receiving a Christ-centered education and being able to worship together.   Last time we came, the floor of the church was getting prepped for pouring the concrete.  It's come a long ways!

The children get to see this view every day from their homes.  I think it is so beautiful.  I am thankful that Zach and his family were able to use the time they were given and redeem it for the good of 72 children and their future generations.  

I don't know all the details of CRP or LSM, but there are a few places you can check out if you're interested to learn more:  https://cancerredemption.com/ or https://loving-shepherd.org/.  LSM has a lot of other neat missions including building a Tech school for the Homes of Hope children to attend after high school; helping exploited women in Ethiopia to find a road to recovery through counseling, education, and vocational opportunities; and also provides adoption resources to parents on the adoption journey.